History of Music Education

Music education has been around for a long time, although it has changed a lot through the years. It has always been known that music affects the way a person feels. It can help to calm a person down and make them feel happy. Some music can make you sad while other tunes can make you excited. However, it has not always been known that music can help you learn. A brief history of music education will help you see how music became a part of the educational system.

Did you know that music education has been in North America every since the 17th century. Eventually music education began to spread south. In the beginning the standards for music education was set by individual teachers. It was up to them to decide what should be taught and how. As the history of music education moved forward this began to change. We now have both regional and national standards that govern the standards of the music education.

When music was first introduced into the educational system teachers and schools began to notice that many students grades began to improve. As a result of this, studies started being formed to see just how much of an impact music really did have on education. The history of music education proves that music can help to improve concentration, self-discipline, corporation and many other areas.

During the twentieth century it was learned that introducing newborns to music increased their intelligence by helping to develop their power of reasoning and language skills. This is when the history of music education really took off. Things have changed quite a bit from then until now and we have come a long way. Technology has really helped the development of music and music history over the years as well. New advances have made it possible for us to make newer and better musical instruments as well as equipment and more. We have equipment to help read, record, balance and study music and much more. We even have equipment that can imitate various musical instruments.

In 1994 the "National Standards for Music Education" was adopted which described nine standards that music education should meet. These included singing and performing on instruments. Improvising and composing music along with reading music became part of the music educational standards. It also included listening and evaluating music and musical performances. These standards also included understanding the association between music and other types of art form plus what music has to do with our cultures and history.

History of Music Education was last modified: April 27th, 2016 by Peter Larsen